A/N: I thought I'd be able to put Daryl's POV into one part, but as I started writing I realised there was just to much to get through, so there will be one more chapter for January coming up next.

Chapter 39: January (Part 2)

At first he thought she was just tired. Or hungry. Maybe even a little down with the situation she was stuck in. He could relate to all of that. So he didn't focus on her mood to much. Instead he focused on getting her more food, he tried to make sure she got more sleep,….he talked to her about things she liked, to try to cheer her up. Because he wanted to believe there was a simple fix to the changes that he'd noticed in Sophia.

Maybe because deep down, he didn't really want to consider the little changes in her. Maybe deep down he knew that it was something bigger and maybe, in the back of his head, a part of him knew there was nothing he could do to stop it.

No matter what he did there wasn't enough food

There wasn't a way to keep the house as warm as he knew he it needed to be. There simply wasn't enough of anything that was needed to keep them alive.

But what was worse then that, was the way she looked.

There was something about her that wasn't quite right. She looked pale and her eyes looked glassy and red. She looked oddly dazed in a way he'd never seen before, and honestly it terrified the hell outta him.

"We need to hunt" She pointed out, looking around the room in a sleepy fog of confusion.

He stopped what he was doing and looked across the room at her. The sound of her voice was almost shock, because over the last few days he had been hearing it less and less. So when she did gather the energy to speak, it was always a jolt to his system.

"I set those traps earlier. Remember?" He said calmly, keeping his tone as casual as he could. "I'll check em later on."

Sophia rubbed her hand over her face and nodded, it was then that he noticed the droplets forming on her brow.

She paid him almost no attention as he walked across the room towards her, and she barely seem to notice when he knelt down next to the bed and placed his hand on her brow.

Then he realized why.

"Shit" he muttered.

"I'm fine" Sophia repeated for the third time that day, only now he knew with complete certainty that the kid was not fine. He wasn't sure if she was flat out lying to him, or just to damn delirious to realize that she was far from fine.

"Sure you are." he offered, as nonchalantly as possible.

He could feel his own heart pounding through his chest as though he had just ran a marathon and his hands still lightly coated in the sweat from her brow began to shake and clench in on themselves.

"Bit of a flu comin' on,… maybe…." He stopped talking then, doing his best to remove the panic from his face and voice before he continued. "You just- you just need to get some rest and you'll be good as new tomorrow."

She was pale and her lips had changed color, to the point that they were almost blue. So he knew she didn't have something as simple as a cold or a flu and he doubted she was going to wake up tomorrow to find herself magically cured. People with colds didn't run fevers like that and they didn't look like they were strung out.

How long had it been like this? Days? Weeks?. Hell, maybe it was longer. He couldn't be to sure anymore.

In the silence, time started to roll together. It blended into a formless haze where he couldn't decipher one hour from the last.

He'd bundled her up, assuring she was warm, then carried her to the traps they'd set, just as he did every day.

He'd silently thanked god for the rabbit that had found itself caught in the snare. He had thanked who or whatever it was that had seen fit to help them eat, when everything else around them was tearing at the seams.

He quickly set the snares again and carried the kid back home.

She'd hung limp in his arms through out the entire trip, not making a single sound. By the time he dropped her back onto the bed, he was almost certain that Sophia had no idea that she had even left the house.

He relied on the snares and he relied on the silence that surround the cabin, hoping not to deter any game that might see fit to pass by. He didn't hunt far from the house, because he couldn't.

Taking her for a quick walk through the cold was one thing, but keeping her out there for hours and hoping the temperature didn't affect her was another.

He would only go as far as he could ,while keeping the house in sight and when he checked the snares he took her along along with him, limp in his arms, hanging over him like a rag doll.

For so many reasons, he couldn't leave her alone at the cabin. Even if he knew wit would benefit them to do so.

A great deal of the time she was unconscious and when she was awake she was delirious.

She was so out of it, that when she woke and offered to keep watch while he rested, he was able to convince her that she already had.

It didn't take a great lie, or a convincing story, he simply told her that she'd already done her part and that now it was time for her to rest. And without fail, once he had assured her that she was relieved of any duties, she would drop back down onto the mattress and fall back to sleep.

Once he was sure that she was comfortable and that the fire was burning as strongly as if could, he retreated into the kitchen to start preparing their dinner and lost himself in the task.

He focused on every little thing he had to do, because it took his mind off the dark cloud hanging over them.

He plucked the few remaining carrots from the garden, diced them and added them to the pot, along with the few edible plants he'd found growing nearby. It wasn't going to be the best meal he'd ever made, but it was something he could feed her. Something warm that he could offer her.

He didn't mind taking care of her. He didn't mind feeding her each meal, clothing her and helping her go to the bathroom. He did it all without a second thought. What bothered him, was her obvious decline and the fact that no matter what he did for her, or how much she rested, she never seemed to improve.

The few tricks he had up his sleeve, were useless against whatever was happening to her. None of the herbs he'd found had made any difference. Keeping her fed, even when it meant that he starved, didn't change a thing. He could make her a warm drink and keep the fire burning, but still, she slipped further and further away from him.

He sat on the floor by the fire watching her sleep, as the sad excuse for a stew cooked. He rested his eyes on the faint rise of her chest, as she drew in each shallow breath and released it. And he tried to come to terms with what was happening,…with what could happen.

He's lost count of how many times she'd almost died in the time that he had known her. But it was always a second in time. A moment when he'd been able to reach out and pull her back, before anything could get her.

This was different, this was drawn out and slow. This time he could sit there and really consider what it would be like if she was gone. He had time to consider the fact that he would have to put her down himself and he'd have to bury her.

He had time alone, to really get a taste of life without her.

He already missed her company. He missed the questions she'd ask. The long conversations they had, that could range from hunting, to a movie she had seen, or a toy that she missed. And he missed the comfortable silence they easily fell into. He missed looking up from whatever he was doing, to find her with her head stuck in that black note book, a doll near by- and more recently, a cat curled up on her lap. The damn cat that never left her. The cat that looked at him and wondered why he wasn't doing anything to help Sophia.

The cat that was quite clearly judging him just as harshly as he was judging himself.

Even Fred the damn cat knew that he didn't belong to this place. Not in the way the cat belonged here. Fred knew this place. He knew how to survive here. Daryl on the other hand, had wondered in here like a stupid stray dog, with a child hanging off his back.

He had brought her here out of fear. Taken her to a place where he didn't know the land, he didn't know how it worked, or how to work with it.

They'd left an area where he'd been born and raised. From a place where he knew how to survive, because he knew the way everything around him flowed into each other, he knew the rhythm that played out silently in the woods around him. From the plants, to the soil, the animals, to the streams. He understood the signs.

It wasn't like this place that he had carried her to.

The place where he had seemingly brought her to die.

He chopped wood in the mornings. He spent hours wondering around the cabin, hoping to see something pass him by, that he could shoot down. He kept watch and set up trip wires, so no one, dead or alive, could get the jump on him.

He carried Sophia wrapped in blankets out to the traps he had set. He cleaned their clothes, cooked their meals and when it was all to much, he would pass out from exhaustion, never really knowing how long he had managed to sleep before his body jolted him awake, telling him it was time to start again.

That was how he usually awoke, to something in his head screaming an alert at him. But not tonight.

Tonight he woke up to the sound of the kid, rambling in her sleep, distressed and scared.

It took him a long moment to realize what was going on. He looked around him, taking in the space where he had fallen asleep. With his back pressed against the bedroom door and the crossbow at his side.

"Daryl!"

His dazed state was pushed aside when he heard her voice rear up once more, calling out to him. Only when his eyes landed on her could he see, from the flickering light of the flames, that she was still asleep. She was still caught in a nightmare and still thrashing around in the bed as much as her weak limbs would allow.

He tripped twice as he scrambled to his feet, landing forward on his hands, while he continued to make his way over to the bed.

He wasted no time. As soon as she was in reach, he grabbed a hold of her arm and began shaking her awake. He called her name as he braced her shoulders, pulling her small body upright as he lightly continued to shake her.

"Soph! Hey! C'mon now!"

Finally her eyes flew open, wider then he'd seen them in days, taking in her surroundings, just as he had done seconds before. Only the relief never settled in her features.

He watched as her eyes frantically looked around the room, as though she expected someone to appear from he shadows, and the longer that thought lingered in his head, the more he realized that she was expecting just that to happen.

Quickly, he he gave her another hard shake, drawing her eyes back to his.

"Ain't no one here but you and me" he promised as he dropped his head slightly to hold her gaze.

"Was just a bad dream. Nothin' more" he added, shaking his head as he spoke.

For days now he had noticed her struggle to take in each breath, so it was hard to tell if her labored breathing was brought on from her dream or not.

Finally Sophia nodded, trying to keep her eyes on his, even though he could tell that her instincts insisted she continue her assessment of the space. It was a feeling he knew well. He'd held it many times before.

He had no idea just how many times he'd woken from a nightmare and found himself waiting for it to appear around him, as though a dream could find a way to crawl from the depths of his mind, out into the world.

"You're ok. You are." he assured her, hoping that if he kept making these promises to her, that eventually she really would be ok.

He noticed her body slouch slightly with his words and her wide eyes drifted back to the tired and narrowed shape he was growing used to seeing.

He thought about offering her some more words of comfort, since they seemed to be working, but before he could say anything else, the kid let her whole body fall forward into him.

He knew what she needed from him right now and he wondered if he was capable of handling it.

He had seen Sophia, dozens of times, crawl onto Carol like a cat and curl herself around her mother.

He wondered just how delirious the kid was to even think he was able to offer something like that. He was to rough and to heavy handed to be good at it.

He didn't think there was anything soft about him, he didn't think he was like Carol at all.

She always had an endless amount of affection to offer.

He was different. If anything, affection still made him feel uncomfortable. Not as much as it once had, but the churning in his stomach was still there, he still wondered if he was doing right or messing it up.

He let out a frustrated breath, that Sophia didn't seem to notice, before he dragged her over to his side and moved them both back on the bed, until he was leaning up against the headboard.

Just like she had with her mother, Sophia molded herself into his side and laid her head on his chest.

He briefly considered the fact that the kid was actually hallucinating, and maybe she was so far gone that she actually thought he was Carol. But before the thought could cement itself, Sophia's faint and weak voice drifted through the silence of the room.

"It hit… right? Before I got sick? It hit. I got the tree. It wasn't a dream right? It was real"

He looked down at her and furrowed his brow. It took him a long minute to realize what she was talking about, until it dawned on him.

Days before Sophia had gotten sick they had been training and admittedly he had been bored out of his mind. It was somehow exhausting watching someone throw a knife over and over again. That was until the blade slid into the bark like it was butter.

He wondered how long both of them were frozen in silence, looking at that damn knife, finally hitting the tree the way the kid had intended it to hit.

And there had been something about the way she had been holding the grip, something about the way she had been standing and throwing…something that helped Sophia hit that target again and again.

She'd done it. It hadn't been a dream. It was a good day.

It was their last good day.

"Yeah Soph. It did. You got the tree..a lot. You even got a walker. Remember?"

She hummed, rather then responding and burrowed her way into his side a little bit more.

"I'm not useless. I can do stuff now" Sophia mumbled quietly to herself.

The words struck him just as harshly as they had in the past, so much so that he spoke without thinking. He spoke a little to roughly, because he didn't like the way her words had made him feel.

"You ain't useless…You never were"

He'd never pushed her, he had never asked her to many questions when she voiced those same words before. He had only ever offered her a few of his thoughts, hoping to help her untie the knots of bullshit that had been tied up in her head.

It was clear she was a little to dazed to consider that she was saying the words out aloud. But he decided that didn't matter, he couldn't let them just lay there, just because he doubted that she had intended for him to hear them.

"Some people they-,… Some assholes, they just say things Soph. They want you to feel bad, they want you to think that you cant make it without em'. That way you wont question it when they treat you like shit."

"He didn't lie" Sophia said firmly, shaking her head, even though her position didn't allow for much movement.

He frowned, looking down at her.

"Yeah, he did"

Again Sophia shook her head, rolling her forehead into his ribs."No he didn't. He knew…."

He watched her closely as she stopped talking, watched her sucking down a breath, clearly trying to calm herself down before she continued.

Sophia kept her eyes on the fireplace, starring straight ahead into the flames, as she spoke each word with perfect clarity, as though she wanted to assure him that she meant them.

"When he said something was gonna happen? It happened. When he said he was gonna do somethin'? he did it. He didn't lie. He knew how how things were gonna go."

He nodded, chewing at his lower lip.

"That's how he wanted you to think. He wanted you to feel like that so he could twist everything. So he could mess with ya." he said, keeping his eyes on her expression as she took in what he'd said.

Daryl knew exactly what her ramblings meant.

He knew how easy it was to get sucked into someones bullshit.

Someone could make themselves appear to be a goddamn prophet. They made promises of consequences and punishments, that would always reveal themselves into reality.

They could tell you that you were gonna fuck up, long before you even had a chance to even make a mistake.

And when you were young, it was impossible to see the real reason why they knew all this. You couldn't understand that it was because they had already decided you'd fuck it up and even if you didn't, they'd make you feel like you did.

You couldn't see that they wanted you walking around on eggshells, so they could punish you the second you stepped out of line.

They got you so turned around, that you just assumed you'd fucked up, even if you didn't.

There were so many ways to make someone feel useless. So many ways to make them fear you.

For a brief moment he thought he saw a flare of anger in Sophia's eyes, but it was quickly extinguished and replaced with an expression that he could only ever describe as devastated.

"Well, it worked didn't it?" she said quietly, shrugging slightly. "He said I'd loose her and I did…. He was right"

He felt his whole body tense, as if bracing himself for a hit or a collision that he knew was coming.

And maybe he shouldn't have been thinking of pushing her any further into the discussion, when she was far gone to even realize what she was doing.

But at the same time, he knew it had been to long. She had kept it all in her head for far to long, she had been left alone with it. It just wasn't fair.

"What did he say to you that day Soph?"

Her gaze that was still caught on the flames, flickering and waving in front of her, dropped down to the floor. For a second he thought she might burst into tears. But much like the anger that had flared in her eyes moments before, she pushed the heartache down until it was no longer visible on her face.

"It don't matter" she whispered, dropping her eyes even lower, in the hopes of hiding them from him.

He nodded firmly.

"Yeah it does. I wanna know and you want you tell me." He said, dropping his head forward, trying to get a look at her as he spoke. "No more bullshit. What happened"

He remembered that day with perfect clarity. He remembered the fear in her eyes and he remembered the way she had looked at him.

But now, as she clamped her lips shut and took in the heavy breaths, he couldn't see the same determination in her expression. She was to tired from carrying it for so long.

"Tell me now Soph" he said calmly, while still managing to keep his tone firm. "You don't gotta keep any more secrets for that piece of sh-.."

"He said you were a liar." Sophia spat out suddenly, cutting him off.

"That you didn't really care about me, that you were just keeping me around until you and Ma decided to start a new family. Then I'd have have to go be with him." There was so much panic in her voice as she rambled and stuttered out the words, and it hit him hard in his chest and gut. It built a rage up in him, that had every drop of blood in his veins boiling.

"He said I needed to stop making him angry before that happened or he'd-….That he'd"

He tried to swallow down the rage that was burning his throat. He tried to remind himself that the man he was so damn pissed at, was nowhere to be found. So any anger he had right now, had nowhere to go. There was nothing he could do with it, except store it away.

He twisted his body, maybe a little to quickly, and braced the kids shoulder, turning her to face him.

"You look at me." He demanded when she averted her eyes from him again. Finally she tensed her jaw then snapped her head up so she could look at him, and he could see her struggling not breakdown over her own words finally being released.

"I'd cut my own throat before I let that happen. You know that. You do right? You know that!" he growled.

"I do…Now, I do." Sophia nodded with tears flooding her eyes, offering him a weak smile that only appeared on one corner of her mouth. "But I didn't know it then"

He nodded. She hadn't trusted him back then. He knew that. To much had happened to her, she had seen to much and heard to much. And he would never hold any of that against her.

"Ya Ma? She loves you more then anything. More then anyone. She'd never leave you with him."

Sophia shook her head and he watched as her face fell into an expression that he wished he had never seen before and prayed he would never had to see again.

"I don't know why I listened to him. I don't know why I-…So stupid"

"Like you said. Everything he said was gonna happen, always happened. That's how they get in your head. That's how they fuck with you."

"Trust me I know." it was then that Sophia glanced at his chest briefly, before she looked back up at him.

He knew she had caught glimpses of the scars. She had most likely seen more of them then he knew. But like her mother, she hadn't asked questions. What she'd done instead, was collect snippets of information, here and there, to come to her own conclusion. One that didn't involve her invading on his privacy, or asking him questions about things he want to explain.

" I wouldn't even talk to her" Sophia added hopelessly.

He could see the tears falling freely now. And it didn't matter if he didn't know what he was doing, or that he was afraid of messing it up, he was going to offer the kid all he had.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her back into his side, then closed his other arm around her, holding her close.

"It ain't your fault. No one was mad at you"

Sophia melted into the hug and curled herself around him, just like she used to when her mother held her.

"I was so mean to her" she mumbled into his chest as she pressed her face down on him.

"You were scared and she knew that. She wasn't mad, not at you." he promised her. And he kept making promises. He kept telling her the truth of Carol's love for the girl, until she fell back to sleep.

He remembered chopping wood. Feeding the kid. He remembered cleaning up after dinner. But it was all a haze in his head. The memories weren't clear and he had to wonder what order they had happened in.

Lately it he wasn't quite sure how time was getting away from him. Sometimes he couldn't remember how he got from 'A' to 'B'.

He would be checking the area around the house, taking watch like he always did, then it was as though he blinked and found himself somewhere completely different. Usually when he was able to form thought again, he would find himself back on the floor, watching the kid sleep.

Nothing was making sense lately and he was far to tired to care. He didn't have the energy to reason with the movement of time. He didn't really care how he made his way from one place to another without any memory of doing it.

And that way of thinking made it easier to accept the sight of her walking into the room.

He wasn't surprised or excited. It wasn't like he had always imagined it being. All the dreams he had of finding her again,… they never went like this.

She never looked like this either. That's why he knew it wasn't real.

He could see the changes in Sophia. He could think back to how she looked when he had first laid eyes on her, he remembered how short her hair used to be, how tall she'd been and even the shape of her face….he could remember that little girl and then compare her to the one he knew now. He could see the differences.

And when he had thought about seeing Carol again, when he really considered the reality of it, he knew he would see changes in her too. She wouldn't look like she did that day when he left her. It simply wouldn't be possible. And that was just another reason why he didn't jump to his feet when she came wondering in to the room.

She looked just like she had that day when everything fell apart. Her hair hadn't grown, her clothes hadn't changed.

She was a mirror image of his last memory of her.

"It's still me" she said smiling, standing over him in her jeans and loose fitting gray shirt.

He let out a breath at the sight of her there in front of him, his heart sank as he looked into her eyes and he fought the urge to reach out to her. Because he knew his hand would find nothing when it tried to grasp her.

So instead, he nodded his head to the spot beside him on the floor.

His head was far to cloudy from exhaustion to consider her presence. It was far less effort, to simply accept that she was here and she had some company to offer him.

"Wheres the bed?" She asked as she settled in beside him to watch her daughter sleep.

"Broke it down for firewood. Everything out there was to damp…I couldn't wait for it to dry. I needed to get her warm fast." he needlessly explained.

"So you-….you burnt the bed?"

He nodded and shrugged. "The bed. The kitchen table. Coffee table…Gonna start rippin' up that porch if need be"

"You should get a pile of wood, have it drying out. Keep a rotation going"

"I know that." he pointed out, ready to explain himself, before shaking his head roughly at her. "You know, I know that. You know I'm doing that. I just cant keep up with it….. And you know that too"

He growled to himself as the simple thought ran thought his head, "Stop arguing with'a. She ain't even real"

"How do you know for sure?" Carol asked, questioning the thought he had never voiced.

"Well…let's just say I'm hopin' ya' in my head, cause the alternative is that you're a ghost and I been chasin' your ass all over Georgia for nothin'" He pointed out with a low and tired chuckle, as he ran his hand over his face.

"You don't believe in ghosts" Carol pointed out with a smile, raising her brow.

He looked over at her and mirrored her expression.

"Now see, Carol? I never told you that"

He watched as her smile weakened and her eyes drifted over to Sophia, taking a long moment to watch the kid suffering before she spoke again.

"Do you want me to leave, Daryl?" she asked in a quiet murmur, as though she was afraid of waking the kid, leaving him to consider the question.

Did he want her to leave?

Really, what he wanted was to feel her soft hand in his, wrap his arms around her warm body and inhale that familiar and comforting scent. He wanted to be able to wake Sophia up right now and tell her that he'd found her mother. That she was right here and they didn't need to look for her anymore and she didn't need to worry after her anymore. He wanted this weight on his shoulders to be, at the very least, lightened.

But he knew he couldn't have any of the things he longed for and none of the things that he had been chasing after. All he had was this…Something fake that he had created, in order to help him get through the night.

He looked at Sophia and listened to the whistling of each breath that she struggled to take, and gently shook his head.

"No…No I don't." he mumbled quietly.

"Why do you want me to stay if you don't think I'm real?" Carol asked softly and carefully.

She wanted him to admit the reason why. Something in his head wanted him to say it out loud. To be honest about what was going on. To admit why, on tonight of all nights, his mind had brought forth this comforting illusion.

He rolled his head along wall, turning to face her again.

The expression on Carol's face was a familiar one, it was one that he had seen before. There was patients and compassion there. There was love there. That was what he needed to get him through the long hours, until the sun rose.

"If she goes tonight" He said, stopping himself to take a deep breath before he continued. Trying to calm himself down, when he felt the seizing in his chest.

"I don't want to be alone when it happens." he admitted, making no effort to cover the scratch that came through in his voice as he spoke.